Geberkidane, Cowgirl DMR Take Big 12 Titles

February 26, 2016 | Cowboy Cross Country & Track, Cowgirl Cross Country & Track

AMES, Iowa - The Oklahoma State track and field teams opened up competition at the 2016 Big 12 Indoor Championships Friday with wins in the men's 5,000-meter run and women's distance medley relay to go along with 18 spots in Saturday finals and an OSU lead on the men's side.

The longest race of the day created the most excitement Friday night when Cowboy sophomore Cerake Geberkidane meandered his way through a loaded field of 22 to win the 5000-meter conference title by four-tenths of a second.

Geberkidane took the lead on the backstretch but was passed by Texas Tech's Benard Keter on the final turn. Geberkidane, Keter and Iowa State's Daniel Everett were neck-and-neck on the homestretch, but Geberkidane regained the lead in the final few meters and narrowly clinched the title in 14:08.55.

Big 12 Cross Country champion Vegard Oelstad took fifth and Craig Nowak came in seventh to take All-Big 12 honors in the men's 5000 as well. Ingeborg Loevnes ran for the Cowgirls in the women's 5,000 and finished second in 16:20.43.

"In the 5K, we scored about where we thought we would," coach Dave Smith said. "We didn't get to exactly where we wanted to, but they ran hard today and did a good job."

The Cowgirl distance medley relay team dominated the competition for the second consecutive year, winning the event in 11:30.65. Savannah Camacho set the tone in the opening 1200-meter leg, giving the baton to Danielle Coleman with a huge lead. Coleman handed off to Clara Nichols and All-American Jennifer Celis ran the anchor mile-leg for OSU.

Texas' Katie Burford overtook Celis, but in the bell-lap, Celis charged ahead and gave the Cowgirls a two-second win.

The Cowgirls put all five entries into the mile final as Kaela Edwards, Molly Sughroue, Celis and Anna Boyert secured automatic qualifying spots, and Aurora Dybedokken qualified on time. Edwards advanced with the fastest time of the day, topping the second-best time by eight seconds.

"I'm excited because the goal is always to make it to the final and we all did that," Edwards said. "I was really confident in myself and the other girls, so I'm just looking forward to having five girls all in orange and just trying to finish as high as we can."

Sughroue and Edwards ran in the 1,000-meter prelim three hours later and both advanced to the final with Sughroue taking the top-qualifying time of the day. Freshman Kaytlyn Larson also made the final, finishing second in heat one and third overall.

Coming into the day, just one of the three Cowboys entered in the long jump competition were ranked in the top-eight in the conference, but all three managed to produce some of their best jumps of the season to claim All-Big 12 honors.

"I was really impressed by our long jumpers, today," Smith said. "We had them down for about three points and what they did was huge for us."

The trio was led by freshman international Jacob Fincham-Dukes who finished runner-up. He jumped 7.56m/24-9.75 feet and rocketed from 72nd in the NCAA into a tie for 33rd. Arlando Brewer-Johnson picked up his third All-Big 12 honor, and first indoor honor, by taking fifth place in the event with a jump more than a foot better than his previous best in 2016 and a new personal best. Simon Imagbe nearly matched his collegiate best with his eighth place jump. Overall the long jumpers secured 13 critical points for the Pokes.

"I woke up this morning and I didn't event think I would be able to make it because I had a fever and I was on the verge of throwing up," Fincham-Dukes said. "To come up with a lot of good points for the team was well needed if we're going to win this."

In just her first season of competition in the weight throw, Chase Ealey picked up All-Big 12 honors with a fifth place finish in the event. Ealey set a personal best 19.39m/63-7.50 with her final throw of the competition to score four points and earn her eighth All-conference honor. Ealey's weekend will continue Saturday in the shot put where she ranks third in the NCAA this season and leads the Big 12.

In the fastest race of the day, John Teeters and Malik Givens turned heads as they both advanced to Saturday's final. Teeters won heat one in a Big 12 record 6.57 seconds and goes into the final tied with TCU's Ronnie Baker who won heat two with the same time.

Givens finished third in heat two and took the fifth qualifying spot with a personal best 6.77. The two Cowboy sprinters were almost joined by a third, but Sharod Selph's 6.85 was just nudged out of the final qualifying spot by four-thousandths of a second.

Teeters went on to run in the 200-meter final, later in the day, and managed to win heat five and advance to the final for the second-straight year.

Both Matthew Fayers and Josh Thompson advanced to the men's mile final with automatic qualifying times. It will be the newcomer Thompson's first Big 12 final, while Fayers will run in his third individual final, but first indoor final. Both Cowboys this season have posted times below the four-minute mark, with Thompson's 3:58.33 good for the second-best mile in the conference and Fayers' time in third.

Thompson's day continued in the 1,000-meter prelim where he advanced to the final with NCAA champion Chad Noelle. The Cowboys had four runners in heat two of the prelim and nearly had three advance to Saturday's final, but Brigham Hedges' finish-line lunge was not enough to take the last qualifying spot. He was knocked out of the final by three-hundredths of a second.

Noelle's anchor-leg in the men's distance medley relay brought the Cowboys back from a distant third into second where they grabbed eight crucial points. Fayers opened the race for the Cowboys and Brandon Singleton and Bradley Johnson took the baton for the 400-and 800-meter legs.

"The DMR did a great job," Smith said. "OU has a great anchor and we needed the lead if we were going to beat him as the anchor because he's just on fire right now. He's kind of like how Chad was this time last year."

Reigning 800-meter indoor conference champion Nichols is set to defend her crown after advancing to the final in 2:08.84. Her title defense will be difficult as 800-meter outdoor conference champion and two-time Cowgirl All-American Camacho also advanced to the final by winning heat one in 2:08.58.

"It's an interesting situation," Camacho said. "I don't think many teams have ever been in position like that, but it really pushes me to do my best and get those points for the team."

Newcomer Tre'Tez Kinnaird made a splash at his first Big 12 Championships coming away with the top-time in the 800-meter preliminary round and automatically advancing into the final.

Ryan Wheatley's 1:11.22 was enough to finish second in heat three and put him into the 600-meter final. Wheatley was one of 11 runners to finish within one second of each other during the preliminary rounds and was less than two-tenths of a second away from winning his heat.

Sophomore multi-athlete Cole Verble ended day one with 2,484 points in the heptathlon after four events. Verble's Friday saw him finish 14th in the 60-meter dash, 12th in the long jump, ninth in the shot put and 12th in the high jump.

"We're in a real tight race with Texas," Smith said. "So tomorrow we have to come to work. Texas is a really good team and they know what they're up against as well."

Overall, the Cowgirls advanced 10 runners to Saturday finals and the Cowboys sent through eight.

After one day, the Cowgirls sit in seventh with 22 points and the Cowboys lead the pack with 37.

Both teams will be back in action tomorrow in the finals mentioned, as well as the men's and women's 3,000 and women's triple jump.

Big 12 Indoor Championships | Feb. 26, 2016 | Ames, Iowa

Women's Results

Weight Throw Final

5. Chase Ealey - 19.39m/63-7.50

14. Ieva Zarankaite - 15.86m/52-0.50

15. Aina Maartensson - 15.14m/49-8.25

16. Katie Kehl - 15.03m/49-3.75

17. Baylor Nelson - 13.62m/44-8.25

Mile Prelim